This week’s Bird of the Week, compliments of the Weminuche Audubon Society and Audubon Rockies, is the black phoebe.
The two western phoebes, the Say’s and the black, may share the same territory but within it utilize different habitats. Say’s phoebes are often found in dry, open areas, while black phoebes are found around nearly any type of water: creeks, coastlines, rivers, reservoirs and backyard ponds.
Black phoebes are found along the Pacific coast from southern Oregon down through Central and South America and also breed in some southwestern inland areas, including ours.
Both sexes are small, plump-looking birds with large, peaked heads and long, dark tails. Their upperparts are colored sooty gray that blends to a dark, black head. Their bellies are solid white. Juvenile birds have browner backs and chestnut-colored wingbars.
These flycatchers are sit-and-wait predators, scanning for insects from low perches usually near or over water. Most often they feed on flying insects like bees, wasps, flies, beetles and dragonflies, and on spiders. It takes real skill to visually track an insect, judge where it is heading and fly out to snatch it midair. Like other birds that swallow their prey whole, including hawks and owls, they cough up hard, indigestible parts as pellets.
Tail wagging up and down while perched is a characteristic action of black phoebes. Studies to determine the reason for this and similar nervous movements like wing flicking and head bobbing by birds point to the conclusion that these actions are conducted to send a message to predators. These motions by a bird in the open signals that it is alert and ready to flee and not worth chasing.
Black phoebes do well living around people. While in natural habitats they plaster their nests of mud and grass on protected rock faces, cliffs and boulders and in tree hollows. In urban environments they have adapted to utilize man-made structures and build nests under eaves, and in culverts and abandoned wells. This adaptability has allowed them to rapidly extend their range northward in recent years.
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Photo courtesy Charles Martinez